Trump did not create this precedent, and blaming him is ignoring Congress' utter failure to override a veto. Congress doesn't need Trumps' signature to pass a budget, and this is the tenth shutdown in 40 years, and there have been 22 gaps (that is 50%) in federal funding - since 1990, any gap results in a shutdown.

Why is a politician standing for their convictions wrong? Their conviction may be wrong or ill-advised, and the tactic may be heavy-handed, but government shut downs are not new, and frankly, occur because Congress uses it as a bartering tool during the elections to garner votes.

I retract my previous statement. Because Congress is THE most powerful branch of government, being able to check both the president through impeachment and the SCOTUS with impeachment/court packing... then the Congress is the only one acting childish over just about any unsolved issue.

Trump's had to deal with a record-breakingly obstructionist Congress. Obama at least got to pass the stimulus package, and then Obamacare. Trump, like Obama, saw his own party in charge of both houses during the first half of his first term. But they haven't played ball with him (or so to speak), not even once. The elites are so entrenched that they've even used the Republican Party as a tool to block Trump from getting anything done. It's been nothing but non-stop war against the President since day one.

This is an outrage, plain and simple. The wall was the item upon which Trump ran for president. And the elites have cheated him and his supporters out of such. They've passed nothing that might make even the slightest contribution to our border security. It's been "never Trump" since day one, and now that the Dems control the House we can expect even more of that.

The situation that President 45 has found himself in is, truly, without historical precedent in perhaps any country that has ever existed. While it's understood that the President does not control the Legislature, if he and his party rose to power in the same election then it should be reasonably expected that they give some deference to the platform that he ran on. Even if this amounts to less than perfect accommodation, it's downright their obligation to give him at least a little bit of what he wants.

These de facto powers that a US President has always exercised in this kind of situation are being stripped of Trump, and it constitutes a de facto infringement on the powers of the Executive by the elites. If Trump, in declaring a national emergency, is able to get what he wants entirely without Congress's permission, then all I have to say about the matter is that they brought it upon themselves. The shutdown also is every bit as much on their heads as it is on Trump's, because his demands are few and very far from being unreasonable, a small spending package that he's only now pressing after nearly two years of being President.

That's the thing: funding and authorizing the wall was always supposed to be Congress's job. But in two years time they never did, even though Trump complained about their lack of action over and over and over again. Short of this present shutdown, or declaring a national emergency, there's little that Trump himself could've done to get the wall built.

As for why they should've given him the wall, well, it would've done *something* at least to address what most Republicans acknowledge as a serious problem. It could've come in a different package. Maybe as a comprehensive immigration and border security reform bill. Maybe something that did not involve a literal wall but got the job done regardless. Instead, they've sat on their hands for two years and obstructed Trump at every turn.

why should the opposition just give in to trump's demand for a wall? he's in the minority in wanting a wall,

If he was in the minority, he would not have won the election.

and he's had two years of government control to get it done but he hasn't

As stated above, Trump at no time had control of the Congress. Control of the Congress means either 60 seats in the Senate, or a majority Senate willing to use the nuclear option. Neither of which Trump had. That's a matter of historical record, not opinion.

Congress should not be paid either. That might put a fire under their butts. The President shouldn't be paid, they should all have to pay consequences for not coming to an agreement and causing this shutdown. They've known they were not going to come to an agreement since he was elected, so they wait until the last minute. Everyone is to blame for this. No one should be paid that has anything to do with this shut down.

so what ya'll are advocating is that anytime a president really wants something, all he has to do is shut down the government to get his way? that's no way to run a government, but it's what you guys are essentially promoting.

Some of them may have made quite a bit of money, but nowhere near what Trump has made. I bet withholding a paycheck would hurt everyone in someway. I'm not "hurting" right now either, but not getting paid would be a big problem for me. It hurts everyone based on what they expect to get at what time. They make what 170 a year, maybe some other means like you said...

If it wouldn't hurt them, then why would they make themselves exempt to this? Because they were afraid it might happen.

everybody knows trump is the one calling the shots. but even if we focused on congress, it's still the republicans who are causing a problem. the president and republicans can't just shut down the government when they really want something. that's no way to run a government. but that's what you guys are promoting. would you like it if president sanders shut down the government with the democrats, to get healthcare for all, or to force a repeal of the second amendment?

The media continuously mentions how the majority does not want the wall, based off of polls. I do not believe polls, they poll people that they want to poll, and whom they have access to poll using methods not available to everyone.

This is why the wall is needed: No one really has any clue about how many people make it in to the US by sneaking over the border. No one has any clue about how many drugs make it across border lines. They make stats based off of assumptions. There is a stat that 40% of the illegal immigrants that are here are just overstaying their visas, and they call these people undocumented immigrants... that is far from the truth, they are documented, we know exactly how many people are still here that overstayed, and these are the people that already passed the security checks in order to be here in the first place, which probably means they are still productive citizens and not running around breaking other laws or committing violent acts.

The people that we don't have a true count on that crossed the border by sneaking over are the ones that are probably committing most of the crime and are not contributing productively to the country. They never passed a background check, or were approved for visas to work in the US. These are the true undocumented immigrants.

A wall just makes common sense. If we were able to count the people that made it across, they never would have made it across in the first place. The truth is we just don't know. Even if that stat were true about the 40%, that means, that with a wall, we would be preventing at least part of the 60% from making it across the border, which is better than nothing.

I'd like to know, out of the stats that the President said in his speech regarding the illegal acts by illegal immigrants, how many of them were overstayed visas and how many were border crossers. I think that would be a good stat to announce.

They are doing new polls as we speak. They continue to do them, I don't know who these people are or the sample size, but they are still polling, almost every day in order to see how many people are losing it because of the shutdown.